Dear all,
Here is the A2K newsletter for the month of May, 2013. Apologies for the delay.
Wikimedia Foundation, beginning from September 1, 2012, awarded the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. Consequently, Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program became the Access to Knowledge (A2K) program of CIS. In this newsletter, we are pleased to bring you updates about the recently concluded exhibition organised in our offices in Bangalore and Delhi and share with you the feedback to the Access to Knowledge work plan from the wikipedia community.
The A2K team consists of three members based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja and Subhashish Panigrahi and one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi. Noopur Raval, Programme Officer left the organisation on April 24, 2013. Archives of our newsletters arehere.
Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.
Celebrating 5 Years of CIS
CIS is now 5 years old and we recently celebrated this by holding an open exhibition in our offices in Bangalore and Delhi from May 20 to 23, showcasing our work and accomplishments over the five year period. We had about 170 visitors coming in to our office. Renowned artists like Tara Kelton, Kiran Subbaiah, Navin Thomas, Abhishek Hazra and Sharath Chandra Ram exhibited their work. The four-day event attracted press coverage: Bangalore Mirror (May 18, 2013), DNA (May 19, 2013), Hindu (May 22, 2013), Prajavani (May 23, 2013), Udayavani (May 25, 2013) and Bangalore Mirror (May 31, 2013). Download all the posters that were part of the exhibition here.
# Announcements
Access to Knowledge Work Plan (April 2013 - June 2014): CIS has announced its detailed plan with projection of outcomes and expected impact of the A2K programme activities. The document has been made in consultation with various stakeholders and keeping in mind the objectives, opportunities and challenges faced by each of the Indian language Wikimedia projects. Feel free to share any feedback.
WMF-A2K Revised Budget (draft) and Utilization (September 2012 - February 2013): In our effort to increase transparency with the working of CIS-A2K programme, we aresharing with you the A2K Programme Budget along with the utilization for the above period. The proposed revisions to the budget along with some notes are here.
CIS Signs MOU with TISS, Mumbai: has signed a MoU with TISS as part of which we will collaboratively work towards building Digital Knowledge Partnerships with select higher education institutions.
India Access to Knowledge IRC can be accessed here: May 13, 2013 (All Language Discussion) and May 26, 2013 (Odia Language Discussion).
# Blog Entries
Odia Wikipedia: Needs Assessment (by Subhashish Panigrahi, May 11, 2013).
Access to Knowledge Work Plan: Synopsis of Feedback by Wikipedians (by Nitika Tandon, May 20, 2013).
Wikipedia Introductory Session organized for Data and India portal consultants (by Subhashish Panigrahi, May 30, 2013).
My First Wikipedia Training Workshop – Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad (by T. Vishnu Vardhan, June 19, 2013).
# Event Organised
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (April 29, 2013, Govinda Pai Research Centre, MGM College Udupi). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led the workshop and gave a talk on Kannada Wikipedia
# Event Participated
Kannada IRC Meet (organised by the Wikipedia Community, May 7, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja participated in this.
# Upcoming Event
Digital Humanities for Indian Higher Education (co-organised in collaboration with HEIRA-CSCS, Tumkur University, CILHE-TISS and CCS (IISc), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, July 13, 2013).
# Press Coverage
Report on CIS 5 Years Celebration (Prajavani, May 23, 2013). Prajavani published a report of Dr. U.B. Pavanja’s talk “From Palm Leaf to Tablet – Journey of Kannada”.
Report on CIS 5 Years Celebration (Udayavani, May 25, 2013). Udayavani published a report of the evening programme hosted as part of the Centre for Internet and Society's 5 year celebrations in its Bangalore edition.
A Feature on Wikipedia and Telegu Wikipedians (HMTV, May 30 – 31, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted in this half an hour feature on Wikipedia and Telugu Wikipedians.
Wikipedia Live Phone-in Programme (HMTV, June 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan speaks about Telegu Wikipedia in the discussion that was telecasted live.
*About CIS*
CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities with ITU and G3ict, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?, Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos, etc. We have conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, NIA Bill, etc.
CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO. CIS staff participates in the Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) meetings regularly held in Geneva, and participate in the discussions and comments on them from a public interest perspective. Our Policy Director, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award.
*Follow us elsewhere*
Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at http://cis-india.org
*Support Us*
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.
*Request for Collaboration*
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil(a)cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant(a)cis-india.org
CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.
Thanks
Nitika Tandon
Program Manager
Access to Knowledge
The Centre for Internet & Society
You are right. English Wikipedia has more than 42 lakh articles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics
The reporter should have researched on the stats.
-TC
On Sun, Jun 23, 2013 at 8:09 PM, Yogesh Khandke <yogesh_khandke(a)yahoo.com>wrote:
> Doesn't Wikipedia English have >40 lakh articles, Hindu is supposed to be
> reliable.
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Tinu Cherian (Wikimedia India) <tinucherian(a)wikimedia.in>
> *To:* Wikimedia India community list <wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>;
> Wikita-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org; WMIN chapter members list <
> wmin-members(a)googlegroups.com>
> *Cc:* Wikimedia India Press <press(a)wikimedia.in>
> *Sent:* Saturday, 22 June 2013 5:22 PM
> *Subject:* [WMIN-Members] [Press] : The Hindu : "Tamil teacher to
> participate in Wikimania"
>
> *The Hindu : "Tamil teacher to participate in Wikimania"
> *
>
> http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/tamil-teacher-to-participa…
>
> *She will be one among the 10 persons selected from the country and one
> among the two persons selected from the State for participating in
> Wikimania 2013, an annual international conference of the Wikimedia
> movement, to be held in Hong Kong, China between August 7 and 11.
>
> S. Parvathi, a Tamil teacher at Panchayat Union Middle School,
> Kandampatti in Salem rural block, has contributed 500 articles, edited
> 10,500 articles and wrote three books for children in the Tamil language
> edition of Wikipedia and was selected for her continuous contribution to
> the portal.
>
>
> Talking about her journey in the knowledge world, she said that while
> searching for projects for class eight students in the website, she could
> not find suitable documents in Tamil and that made her mind to contribute
> something to the growth of development of the language. “It is the passion
> towards Tamil that started contributions in 2001. An article on Onam
> festival was published as main story and it motivated me,” she said.
>
> The Tamil Wikipedia currently has 52,000 articles when compared to 12 lakh
> in English. It is the second largest Wikipedia among Indian languages by
> article count and 59 largest in the world. Ms. Parvathi along with Sengai
> Podhuvan from Chennai were selected for contributions to Tamil while the
> rest eight were selected for their contributions in Oriya, Gujarati,
> Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi.
>
> Her contributions were in subjects dealing with noble laureates,
> scientists, Tamil literature and grammar apart from general issues.
> “Penetration of internet is increasing and more articles in Tamil are
> becoming essential nowadays,” added the teacher.
>
> Though there is no financial incentive for posting articles and editing
> works, she is happy about the contributions to the growth of Tamil
> language. She wanted more women to contribute for the Tamil Wikipedia and
> be a part of knowledge sharing society.
>
> About 2,500 people representing 200 languages are expected to take part in
> the conference that would help them to learn and share experience and come
> out with new knowledge initiatives across the world.
> --
>
> *
> Regards
> Tinu Cherian
> press(a)wikimedia.in
> http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news
>
> *Important Note : *Non-commercial reproduction for informative purposes
> only. The publisher ( The Hindu ) of the above news article owns the
> copyrights of the article / content. All copyrights are duly acknowledged.
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "wmin-members" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to wmin-members+unsubscribe(a)googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>
>
>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "wmin-members" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to wmin-members+unsubscribe(a)googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>
>
>
*The Hindu : "Tamil teacher to participate in Wikimania"
*
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/tamil-teacher-to-participa…
*She will be one among the 10 persons selected from the country and one
among the two persons selected from the State for participating in
Wikimania 2013, an annual international conference of the Wikimedia
movement, to be held in Hong Kong, China between August 7 and 11.
S. Parvathi, a Tamil teacher at Panchayat Union Middle School, Kandampatti
in Salem rural block, has contributed 500 articles, edited 10,500 articles
and wrote three books for children in the Tamil language edition of
Wikipedia and was selected for her continuous contribution to the portal.
Talking about her journey in the knowledge world, she said that while
searching for projects for class eight students in the website, she could
not find suitable documents in Tamil and that made her mind to contribute
something to the growth of development of the language. “It is the passion
towards Tamil that started contributions in 2001. An article on Onam
festival was published as main story and it motivated me,” she said.
The Tamil Wikipedia currently has 52,000 articles when compared to 12 lakh
in English. It is the second largest Wikipedia among Indian languages by
article count and 59 largest in the world. Ms. Parvathi along with Sengai
Podhuvan from Chennai were selected for contributions to Tamil while the
rest eight were selected for their contributions in Oriya, Gujarati,
Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi.
Her contributions were in subjects dealing with noble laureates,
scientists, Tamil literature and grammar apart from general issues.
“Penetration of internet is increasing and more articles in Tamil are
becoming essential nowadays,” added the teacher.
Though there is no financial incentive for posting articles and editing
works, she is happy about the contributions to the growth of Tamil
language. She wanted more women to contribute for the Tamil Wikipedia and
be a part of knowledge sharing society.
About 2,500 people representing 200 languages are expected to take part in
the conference that would help them to learn and share experience and come
out with new knowledge initiatives across the world.
--
*
Regards
Tinu Cherian
press(a)wikimedia.in
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news
*Important Note : *Non-commercial reproduction for informative purposes
only. The publisher ( The Hindu ) of the above news article owns the
copyrights of the article / content. All copyrights are duly acknowledged.